Chief_Adviser
Number of posts : 615
Age : 40
City/Town : in ur heart .
Registration date : 2008-06-10
 |  Subject: Restore all rights for polls: EU................  Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:23 pm | |
|  The European Union will not send a polls observation mission unless the government restores certain civil and political rights by relaxing or liftitng the state of emergency, the European Commission's mission head in Dhaka said Wednesday.
EC mission head Stefan Frowein also told a meeting of the Diplomatic Correspondents' Association of Bangladesh at Lake Shore Hotel in Gulshan that the EU would not support any military government, when pressed by reporters on the subject.
The EU does not in principle send polls observers to monitor elections held under a state of emergency.
Foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, however, has said in recent weeks that the caretaker government would press for an EU observation mission to Bangladesh.
The foreign adviser met with European commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner in New York in September with a view to securing a polls observation mission.
The EC mission in Dhaka termed Iftekhar's talks with the commissioner in New York "constructive".
"[The commissioner] will take a decision on sending polls observation mission to Bangladesh by middle of October," Charles Whiteley, first secretary to the delegation of the European Commission to Dhaka, told us at the time.
The EC's decision on dispatching election observation missions begins with an "exploratory" mission to weigh the political situation and judge whether an election-friendly atmosphere exists in the country.
The EC's commissioner for external relations takes a final decision on the basis of a report made by the exploratory mission.
The EC's exploratory mission came to Bangladesh on June 15 for 7 days, to meet with government officials, political leaders, officials of the Election Commission, journalists, civil society and NGO representatives.
The exploratory mission submitted its report to the EC in August. | |
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